Attention!

[Phil Lilley]

How many showed up?

Did MDC seemed to sympathize with anybody?

In the past when they've had meetings like this, they do bring alot of MDC people in- local, regional and state. It shows they care, I guess. I wish I could have gone...

[Wayne SW/MO]

I would estimate 200, maybe more?

I don't really think they did, but to be honest I thought they may have been surprised at the turnout. I understand that the meeting was called as an after thought because of a lot of pressure from an individual. The state representative Maynard Wallace was there along with the sheriff and an officer from the prosecutor's office and they weren't there to support the state. The sheriff was extremly helpful in offering alternatives to the littering and property damage issues. Mr. Wallace was very blunt in opposing any closures.

It seems that they are going to work with volunteers, I signed up, to work things out, but it remains to be seen if this will bring compromise or they will just overwhelm a few and claim they listened.

The bottom line seems to be that the MDC would like things neat, and an ever aging population wants accessibility to what they rightfully believe is theirs.

I was surprised at the number of uniformed agents, eight, maybe more, that were there.

[Phil Lilley]

That's more than what showed for the fish-talk last spring-summer? The meeting at the Taney Center. That's good.

Is this a common occurance on Corp lakes or is just a Bull Shoals issue I wonder.

[Al Agnew]

Yeah, it's pretty common. Have had a lot of conflicts about the same thing on Wappapello Lake. Seems to be the knee-jerk reaction...having problems with an access? Close it instead of working to take care of the problems. It DOES take manpower and money to police and maintain accesses and access roads. A lot of the bureaucrats always think the money should be spent someplace else.

I was interested to see the Sherriff and prosecutor being on the side of keeping the places open. That is seldom the case, in my experience. It always drove me nuts when the law enforcement people were the ones advocating closing an access because there were too many problems associated with it. THEIR JOB IS TO TAKE CARE OF PROBLEMS LIKE THAT AND ARREST PEOPLE. And it would seem to me that, if they just did their jobs and regularly showed up at a known problem spot and arrested everybody breaking the law, pretty soon the word would be out among the doofuses that the spot was no longer a good place to go nuts. And in the meantime the law enforcement people would have gotten a few drunken drivers and druggies off the roads and out of our hair for a while.

[KRflyfisher]

It always drove me nuts when the law enforcement people were the ones advocating closing an access because there were too many problems associated with it. THEIR JOB IS TO TAKE CARE OF PROBLEMS LIKE THAT AND ARREST PEOPLE. And it would seem to me that, if they just did their jobs and regularly showed up at a known problem spot and arrested everybody breaking the law, pretty soon the word would be out among the doofuses that the spot was no longer a good place to go nuts.

Nicely put, I fully agree. In all truth closing accesses is more of a penalty to law abiders than to anyone else. The "doofuses" out there will find another place to play, and eventualy be run out of. But where else can law abiding citezens get access to that particular stretch of water? LET THE LAW WORK IN THE FAVOR OF THOSE WHO FOLLOW IT!

[Snow Fly]

There goes the business at the local Donut shop if the police,sheriff etc. has to take care of law enforcement!